Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @08:15AM
from the not-sure-that-issa-good-idea dept.

SchrodingerZ writes "Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, has drafted a bill for the internet. The bill, aptly named the Internet American Moratorium Act (IAMA), is, 'a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet.' In short it hopes to deny any new government bills related to lawmaking on the internet for the next two years. The bill was first made public on the website Reddit, and is currently on the front page of Keepthewebopen.com, a website advocating internet rights. 'Together we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet,' Issa writes on his Reddit post. The initial response to the bill has been mixed. Users of Reddit are skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility. As of now, the bill is just a discussion draft, whether it will gain footing in the future is up in the air."

Why spend time building something up when some capricious law is just going to tear it down or otherwise gimp it? Well, under this declaration, you know nothing is coming down the pike for the next 2 years.

"Why spend time building something up when some capricious law is just going to tear it down or otherwise gimp it? "
Isn't that pretty much all of human history except when you are either in the good graces of an unelected monarch/dictator or living someplace with no effective government?

A law to not make laws? Why not just not pass the laws you don't want?

This prevents any laws from passing, even the ones Mr. Issa doesn't want to pass but others do

Actually, it doesn't. Congress can't make a law that binds Congress's lawmaking ability.

What this is about is being seen to do something while actually not doing anything. The measure won't pass but some members will climb on board and talk about it and get attention that they hope will build their personal reputations.

Is that actually true? In the UK, Parliament can't pass laws that bind a future Parliament[1], but in this case he's only proposing a 2-year limit (i.e. for the duration of this Congress), so that wouldn't apply: they'd be voting to limit themselves, not future holders of their office. That said, wouldn't it be simpler to get 50% of the members of one of the houses to sign a pledge to vote against any such legislation?

[1] This raised some interesting constitutional issues when we signed the Treaty of European Union.

Lawmakers can't tie their hands like this save by constitutional amendment.

In practice they can. For example, the rules of the U.S. Senate, readopted as each new class of senators is sworn in, require 60 percent assent for a "cloture" motion to proceed on a bill. Without cloture, the minority with 41 to 49 percent can threaten to "filibuster" the proceedings by giving hours of off-topic speeches.

That doesn't prevent the passage of laws, it just requires a supermajority of 60% to pass, which, if the legislation is heavily controversial, sounds like a good idea to me. Prevent the whole 51% dictating to 49% thing.

Not that different from needing a supermajority to override a presidential veto really, except it works even if the president is of the 51%Just one more check.

A procedural obstruction is far different from a law blocking other laws.

Unless the law blocking other laws is implemented as a procedural obstruction. The 2-year limit and the fact that the House and Senate rules are up for renewal this January make it sound like that might be the case.

A procedural obstruction is far different from a law blocking other laws.

Unless the law blocking other laws is implemented as a procedural obstruction.

Nope. A procedural rule only needs to be voted on by a majority of one chamber (senate or house). It can also be undone by a vote in one chamber. But a law has to pass both chambers and be signed by the president. Once in place, it cannot be undone unless a new law is passed by both chambers and signed by the president.

Even if this ban is implemented other than as a law, it can still be effective because as you pointed out, a bill has to be passed in both chambers. If a procedural rule in one chamber stops the bill from being passed, the bill cannot be passed in both chambers and thus cannot become law.

For example, the rules of the U.S. Senate, readopted as each new class of senators is sworn in, require 60 percent assent for a "cloture" motion to proceed on a bill.

Right, but the rules are only enforceable by the Senate itself. That is, if the Senate really wanted to, it could ignore the rules. In fact, the idea of doing so with regard to filibuster (usually by the expedient of the presiding member ruling that the rule does not apply to a particular vote, which would t

It's better than what I have seen proposed - much less done - from the other side of the aisle top-down for the past four years, which in a nutshell has been increased meddling, decreasing privacy, a disturbing lack of transparency, and attacks on several of our basic rights.

These are all broken campaign promises, things that people voted certain folks into office over, "Hoping for Change", if I can borrow a slogan... It sure didn't!

It's better in the sense that Issa proposing a law to make Sunday "Congressional Ice Cream Day" would be better; it is a complete waste of time however, and it merely re-enforces the fact that Issa is a waste of space.

Not pointless. It just enforces the fact that AS A WHOLE, the internet is better off without congress trying to play with it. In order to get any special interest law passed, first they have to get a majority to repeal this law, which could likely fail because then all sorts of other special interests may try to get stupid stuff passed.

No, they can repeal the law as part of whatever law it is they're passing that involves "The Internet". Or, you know, just ignore it given the passage of the new law itself implies that the "Ban New internet Laws" thing is a load of crap.

What this is, is Issa, for good or bad, is trying to do something that most of/. would agree with. Stop messing with the Internet. Some people can't wrap their heads around the fact that Issa is doing something good (motive unknown) while being an (R) and that is causing their heads to assplode. Some People are so ingrained with (D) good (R) bad that they can't even side with the (R) the one time in 12 hours he is right (broken clock).

Don't get me wrong, there are a great number of (R)s that have the exact

What this is, is Issa, for good or bad, is trying to do something that most of/. would agree with. Stop messing with the Internet.

No, its not.
Its Issa making a symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion that he is interested in stopping government messing with the Internet.
When you look at the substantive legislation affecting how the government does or does not regulate private industry and activity that that Issa has sponsored in the last year, that illusion is hard to maint

So, are you against Obama when he makes "symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion that he is interested in" doing something you agree with? If not, then why is Issa different?

Cutting 900 million out of a budget that is Trillions of dollars under funded, is one of those "symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion that he is interested in" doing something. Or going to a book store with his kids in support of buying "local" when most of the time he doesn't do any thing like this.

Don't get me wrong, both sides do the same thing, making "symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion" of lots of things. Speak against them all or stop cherry picking because there is an (R) or (D) after their name.

I can support Dennis Kucinich when he is right on something, as much as I can support Issa on something he's right on. They are not even close politically on most issues.

no that would simply lead instant inflation because they would then raise the minimum wage which would cost employers more that would in turn rise their price for goods and services or fire people. So congress would raise it again rinse repeat. What they should do is make their pay=(M+m)/2 where "M" and "m" is the mean a median income for the district they represent.

Is that actually true? In the UK, Parliament can't pass laws that bind a future Parliament[1], but in this case he's only proposing a 2-year limit (i.e. for the duration of this Congress), so that wouldn't apply: they'd be voting to limit themselves, not future holders of their office.

No. If passed by the Lameduck Congress, it would bind the incoming Congress for two years.

Its partly true they can certainly make a law (A) that says they can't make laws but there is nothing to stop them from creating a law (B) that explicitly says it invalidates (A) and also does "some stuff".

Its partly true they can certainly make a law (A) that says they can't make laws but there is nothing to stop them from creating a law (B) that explicitly says it invalidates (A) and also does "some stuff".

Its not even necessary for the later law to explicitly say that it invalidates (A). Later enactments supercede older enactments to the extent that they have an irreconcilable conflict. Any law explicitly regulating conduct on the internet would conflict with the moratorium, and would thus override it wi

its not really a law. a moratorium is basically a collective agreement to focus on other things. and congress makes these sorts of collective agreements/resolutions regularly, typically at the begining of a new session (which would be right about now) as a way of deciding what they will work on for the next few years and how they will do it.

Its not really a law. a moratorium is basically a collective agreement to focus on other things. and congress makes these sorts of collective agreements/resolutions regularly, typically at the begining of a new session (which would be right about now)

No, this is not the beginning of the new session. The beginning of the new session (which is also the beginning of a new Congress this year) is in January. And bills in process don't carry over to the new Congress, so even if we looked at this as somehow ana

Sure it does, because it attempts to bind the current legislature, and without some constitutional power allowing Congress to not legislate on that matter, all it takes is for the day after the law is passed for another law to be passed repealing that law.

The meat of the bill is the part where it forbids any regulatory agency from creating new rules. Remember, regulatory agencies operate under the authority of Congress, certain functions reserved to Congress under the Constitution being delegated by Congress to that agency under that laws that created it.

But in general, each Congress can make its own rules, and is not restrained by previous Congresses. Usually, they just adopt the previous Congress' rules. But they can make a rule that binds them for the rest of the Congress. Technically the rule can be rescinded, but that can be made much harder to do than simply passing legislation that the rule prohibits. In addition, if the rule has popular support, then those pushing to rescind the rule will be at a political disadvantage.

Technically speaking, the "current" Congress is the Lame Duck Congress. The Congress that is in effect for the next 2 years is seated Jan 1 2013. So as long as this isn't voted on until after Midnight on Jan 1 2013, then it is indeed legal as it only binds the sitting Congress.

Personally, I am all for a Constitutional Amendment to keep the Internet free of regulation. I am also for a Constitutional Amendment stating that Congress may not delegate it's lawmaking ability to unelected bureaucratic governme

Some from column A, some from column B. It would make it harder for the government to directly interfere in various ways, but would also make it harder for the government to enforce any kind of utility-style fair-access or net-neutrality rules (since those would be "regulations").

Do you mean net neutrality, or 'Net Neutrality'? One is TCP/IP's 'fight for your life' fair approach, while the other is a political movement that undermines the internet while appearing to serve it, in much the same way that any bill making its way through Congress can be understood by taking the negation of its name.

I still would rather have Congress and the FCC do nothing to change the net, then have them "do something."

Darryl Issa, the sponsor this year of H.R. 3782: "Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act", isn't interested in Congress doing nothing to change the net.
Even if he happens right now to be making an empty, symbolic gesture in that direction.

The FCC is especially dangerous. Look at how much they cater to the mobile companies' desires.

So long as there are accompanying moratoria on new copyright bills, perhaps the/. crowd can get behind it.

But as any patent examiner can tell you - adding the phrase "on the internet" to everything is all the rage these days. Would the passage of this bill mean that the next congressional session can't do anything, because everything is related to the internet? What about privacy protection, the upcoming FISA renewal, patent reform, etc.? Probably those are pressing areas, related to the internet,

It would probably be more helpful than hurtful if all bills had a 2 year waiting period before they can be passed. Sure some bad stuff would happen when we occasionally need something to be done quickly but it would give the people ample time to react to any bad bills like SOPA or The Patriot Act.

It pains me to insert a negative vibe, but I have no confidence whatsoever that this would do any good at all. I don't even think writing sunset provisions into laws would do any good. The federal government is in full runaway mode with no rescue in sight.

So long as there are accompanying moratoria on new copyright bills, perhaps the/. crowd can get behind it.

Not me. We all need at least one new copyright bill: add an exemption to DMCA's anti-circumvention prohibition (and the associated manufacture/sale/etc part), to legalize non-copyright-infringing uses.

Until you realize that this will also put a moratorium on things like privacy laws, as well as put a hold on any action regarding things like bandwidth caps, net neutrality, and copyright enforcement legislation. That may be good or bad, depending on how we're represented, but I'd rather have the debate in congress, rather than have them be forced to sit idly by while the incumbents go unchecked.

The Corruptman in question is against Net Neutrality. To force net neutrality, laws are needed. This guy wants to stop that. He wants unbridled and unchecked market forces to regulate the Internet.

We know who the market it is, HINT: it ain't you and we know the market wants to destroy net neutrality. This corruptman isn't proposing a freeze, he is proposing government do nothing while business gets to do everything it wants.

If you want to see if this is a good idea, fellow republican corruptmen forced the

The Net Neutrality laws that have been proposed is just allowing three unelected FCC officals to determine what is allowed and what is not. Those three will be unanswerable to the people or Congress, it will basically put the internet under complete control of the executive branch to put in place any regulations they feel is needed.

What you think of net neutrality is great, but I have yet to see any law proposed that promotes that. They just cleverly use the same name and assume you won't actually read wh

We have seen only the opposite of that proposed by Congress. Do you really think that the progressive democrats are about to suddenly start down your path (even though they haven't yet) and Issa is trying to beat them to it?

You cannot invite the government to be involved in every aspect of your life that you WANT them to, and then expect them to politely stay out of the bits you DON'T want them involved in. To expect anything else is at the very least naive.

As famously said "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. "

They cry about their precious "Net Neutrality" even as this bill unconditionally outlaws...

1) Data retention mandates.2) New surveillance powers, claims, etc.3) Any new intelligence community moves into further "securing the net" (think about that recent controversy over the NSA secretly claiming to "invade private networks")4) New powers to seize domain names or any thing else Hollywood wants

Yeah, what a trade off. Give me some of that DoJDHSDoD Internet love any day so long as Verizon has to be 100% "fair and neutral..."

The trouble is, without net neutrality, we still get to live under the same spying, overbearing, over-regulating regimes, it's just that this regime happens to be a corporation instead of the government. At least we get to vote on the government.

The major ISPs have no desire to actually "spy on you." The worst they may do is run analytics on you to target advertising at you. Unlike with government, there are actually laws protecting you from some of this anyway. For example, if your ISP overrides my ads on my site or adds them, I can sue them for creating a derivative work.

At least we get to vote on the government

And when you lose the vote or the issue you want to vote on is never brought up for a vote, you don't get to opt out the way you do with

False.They want to keep your data and resell it.Like most other corporation, they will use anything they can access to make money. Just like corporation will poison local water sources.

", you don't get to opt out the way you do with a relationship with a corporation"You never get to opt out of a relationship with a corporation. You can stop buying their products, depending,. But they will continue to use anything that have about you to make money anyway they can. You may not be active in the relationship, b

The government has the right to secure the internet. The intelligence community has the right to monitor the internet.There should be no secrets kept hidden from the US military on the internet because that would empower terrorists to plan their attacks on the enemy against US troops.

They cry about their precious "Net Neutrality" even as this bill unconditionally outlaws...

The bill doesn't really outlaw anything, since any bill regulating the internet would -- without even requiring a specific mention -- override this one exactly as much as necessary for the new bill to be given effect. This bill does nothing.

Republican Issa's corporate sponsors evidently believe that they've got the Internet set up for whatever harvesting they might desire. So they're leveraging the small House majority (elected by a gerrymandered minority of House voters) they bought into eliminating the power of the Democratic minority, the significant Senate majority, and the reelected Democratic president.

Darrell Issa has spent his career investigating and attacking Democrats. It's cost a fortune, halted government action, and turned up not

Gerrymandering goes on across the board. Both parties do it as much as they can. Have you seen Jackson Lee's district? Or the Illinois 4th? Those Democrats would not be in office if not for racist carve-outs. Of course some gerrymanders aren't for partisan political reasons. Arizona's famed 2nd looks funny because the Hopis and Navajos didn't want to be represented by the same congresscritter.

No. Automatic cuts to their gorging by spending is a good thing.
Sequestration is the best thing that could happen to Congress.

The whole bunch of expiring tax cuts may not be the best thing that could happen to Americans, though (almost everyone thinks that some of them shouldn't expire, the main debate on the tax side is over whether a small subset of them should be extended.)

Being skeptical of our government is among the most important patriotic duties of U.S. citizens. The Declaration of Independence is an impassioned ode to the enduring beauty of critical enquiry of the motives and actions of government. Regardless of how we feel about Rep. Issa, it is our duty to challenge his statements.

a discussion draft

One of my common complaints about the state of our government is that our elected officials, when addressing complex issues, focus more effort on directing public opinion than on fostering public debate. The goal of our leaders should be to bring the nation into the analysis, not to establish our conclusions. By presenting this as a provocative entree rather than a finalized declaration, he has given us a kernel upon which to found the discussion.

For my part in that; I think a moratorium is a double edged sword. Authoritarian versus libertarian is only one dimension, another is organizational versus individual. It is possible to believe that individual rights to speak and associate freely on the Internet should be subject to less government authority and also that that organizations (lobbies, unions, corporations, religions) should be more limited in their permits to influence or monitor the behavior of individuals on the Internet. A moratorium could prevent the government from censoring individual speech, or it could give ISPs a two year foothold on selective restriction of online activities.

...because you are being misdirected. Issa is as slimy as they come and a paid whore for the telecom industry. Among the many disservices he's done for his constituents was voting for retroactive immunity for the phone companies (all of them, save QWest) who held the bag while various agencies violated our rights and spied on us without judicial supervision. If he's putting something as radical as this in place, there's a reason and you can bet that it's not something that is good for us.

A moratorium on Internet-Americans? When will this country learn that diversity and immigration are its cornerstones? Millions of Internet-Americans are already here, they're not going anywhere, and growing their ranks is our only path to economic salvation!

If Issa's behind it, it's not being done because it benefits the public. My guess is this bill's proposed for the same kind of reasons California's Proposition 33 on auto insurance rates was proposed. That proposition would've changed the law to permit insurance companies to offer lower rates to drivers who'd had insurance for more than a certain length of time. Sounds good, right? Here's the catch: California law already requires insurance companies to offer best rates based only on driving record, regardl

Congressmen submit legislation to publicize a cause or satisfy constituents. Most of it never emerges from committee. Most of the legistlation comes from big presidential/party initiatives. Then packed with amendments and earmarks.

I'm willing to bet the main thrust (what with the R following his name) is to keep the FCC from effectively regulating the Verizon Wireless / AT&T duopolies - especially their usurous data rates and fantasy-based 'some ones and zeros are different than others' policies.

What if a moratorium was added, by default, to all but the most important laws the first time they were passed? This could make it mandatory to review the worth of a law after it has been in effect for a while.

As written, this is gibberish. I suspect you may have confused a moratorium with a sunset date; the two are very, very different things.